ECLIPSE – Jake Moore

In the summer of 2014 Circa centre d’exposition became Circa art actuel. This shift in taxonomy, from a name that references site to one that defines content, paralleled a major downsizing by almost two thirds. The primary attribute of the voluminous space now severed is the light provided by corner windows that faced Montreal east. The view had been into Place des arts, now known as Quartier de spectacles. This division of space is emblematic of a series of economies and tied to the migration of cultural producers within a shifting cultural and political landscape. Eclipse is an installation of moving image located in CIRCA’s newly created POPOP Gallery, a rental site envisioned as a move towards the gallery’s sustainability and fiscal autonomy. In this windowless room, moore attempts to capture the light lost when the gallery was divided through a crystalline exhibition of moving images. Using time lapse photography in multiple time signatures and formats, the composition of flickering images connote the impossibility of knowing a site or a historical moment, their respective portent and their ultimate affect. The individual gazes of the Bolex, the EX03 HD digital, and the GoPro cameras suggest the multiple perspectives required for understanding, though they are not providing an indexical document so much as working as sculpture – defining volume, interiority and context simultaneously. Their images are re-animating a place that exists no longer, or perhaps was only ever imagined, as space is a construction that moves beyond bricks and mortar though maintains multiple, if shifting, values within the built environment and the actual.

Remerciements:
The artist wishes to acknowledge the invaluable support and remarkable skill of Daïchi Saïto, the generous access provided by Circa art actuel, Andreanne Godin, Lesley Johnstone, and for too many things for ever and always, Steve Bates.